Site Navigation

Site Mobile Navigation

Son Held in Double Slaying

A 30-year-old computer specialist was charged today with murdering his parents on Monday in their home in a fashionable section of Englewood.

The suspect, De Witt L. Crandell 2d, spent the day in the jail ward at the Bergen Pines County Hospital in Paramus for medical and psychiatric tests, his lawyer, Brian J. Neary, said. Mr. Neary said that Mr. Crandell was unable to hold a meaningful conversation in a brief meeting.

Mr. Crandell's hospitalization forced the authorities to delay his initial court hearing on the charges of fatally stabbing his father, De Witt, 66, a retired psychiatrist and professor, and his mother, Marian, 63, a social worker.

The Crandells' bodies were found about 8:30 A.M. on Monday in separate hallways of their two-story home after a family friend called 911. Mr. Crandell was apprehended later about a mile from his parents' house.